Maria Bochkareva
Maria Bochkareva | |
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Born | July 1889 Nikolskoye, Kirillovsky Uyezd, Russian Empire |
Died | 16 May 1920 (aged 30) Krasnoyarsk, Russian SFSR |
Allegiance | Russian Empire (to 1917) Russian Republic |
Unit | 25th Tomsk Reserve Battalion |
Commands held | Women's Battalion |
Battles/wars | World War I
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María Leontievna Bochkareva (July 1889 – 16 May 1920;
Early life
Maria Frolkova was born to a peasant family in the village of Nikolskoye in July 1889. Her father was a sergeant in the imperial army who fought in the Russo-Turkish War.[1] She left home at sixteen to marry[1] Afanasy Bochkarev. They moved to Tomsk, Siberia, where they worked as labourers. Her husband abused her, causing her to leave him. She found a job as a servant to employers who coerced her into working in their brothel.[2] They moved her to Sretensk where Maria began a relationship with a local Jewish man named Yakov (or Yankel) Buk.[2] She and Buk opened a butcher shop, but in May 1912 Buk was arrested for larceny and sent to Yakutsk. Bochkareva followed him into exile, primarily on foot, where the couple established another butcher shop. Buk was caught stealing again and sent to Amga in 1913. Once again Bochkareva followed him. Buk began drinking heavily and became abusive.
Military career
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Bochkareva left Buk and returned to Tomsk. In November, she was rejected by the 25th Tomsk Reserve Battalion of the Imperial Russian Army. The commander suggested that she try joining the Red Cross instead. When she insisted that she wanted to fight with the men, the commander helped her compose a telegram to Tsar Nicholas II requesting his personal permission.[3] When she obtained his approval, she underwent three months' training[4] and was sent to front-line duty with the 5th Corps, 28th Regiment of the Second Army, stationed at Polotsk. She was decorated for rescuing fifty wounded soldiers from the field.[1]
After she was wounded in the arm and leg, Bochkareva worked as a medical sister until she returned to the front as a corporal in charge of eleven men.[1]
She suffered another injury that left her paralyzed for four months. After she recovered, she returned to the front as a senior non-commissioned officer delivering supplies to a platoon of seventy men.[1] Men of the regiment treated her with ridicule or sexually harassed her until she proved her courage in battle.[5] Eventually, she became exhausted from her physical injuries and lost interest in her military post.[citation needed] She was discharged in the spring of 1917.[1]
After the abdication of the Tsar in early 1917 due to the February Revolution, she proposed to Mikhail Rodzianko the creation of an all-female combat unit that she claimed would fix the Army's morale problem. She believed that it would shame the men into again supporting the war effort.[4] Once she agreed to lead the unit, her proposal was approved by Army Commander-in-Chief Brusilov, and she approached Minister of War Alexander Kerensky. Although female recruitment went against army regulations, the all-female battalion was granted special dispensation.[6] This was the first women's battalion to be organised in Russia. Bochkareva's 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death initially attracted around 2,000 women volunteers, but the commander's strict discipline drove all but around 300 out of the unit.[7][3]
The rushed training of the battalion was led by twenty-five male instructors from the Volunskii Regiment of the
Bochkareva was only marginally involved in the creation of other women's combat units formed in Russia during the spring and summer of 1917. Her unit was at the front at the time of the October Revolution and did not participate in the defence of the Winter Palace—another women's unit did, the 1st Petrograd Women's Battalion. Bochkareva's unit disbanded after facing increasing hostility from the remaining male troops at the front. Bochkareva returned to Petrograd where she was briefly detained by the Bolsheviks. She secured permission to rejoin her family in Tomsk but returned to Petrograd again in early 1918. She claims to have then received a telegram asking her to take a message to General Lavr Kornilov, who was commanding a White Army in the Caucasus. After leaving Kornilov's headquarters, she was again detained by the Bolsheviks and, after they learned of her connection with the Whites, was scheduled to be executed. She was rescued, however, by a soldier who had served with her in the Imperial Army in 1915 and who convinced the Bolsheviks to stay her execution. She was granted an external passport and allowed to leave the country. Bochkareva then made her way to Vladivostok, where she left for the United States by the steamship Sheridan in April 1918.[8]
United States and Britain
Sponsored by socialite
While in New York, Bochkareva dictated her memoirs, Yashka: My Life As Peasant, Exile, and Soldier, to a Russian emigre journalist named
Return to Russia and execution
Bochkareva arrived in Arkhangelsk in August 1918 and attempted to organise another unit, but failed.
In April 1919, she returned to Tomsk and attempted to form a women's medical detachment under
Legacy
Maria Bochkareva is one of the heroines of the Russian film
In 2018 the
See also
- Flora Sandes – First World War soldier and nurse (1876–1956)
- Milunka Savić – Serbian war heroine
- Ecaterina Teodoroiu – World War I soldier and nurse
- Leslie Joy Whitehead – Canadian female soldier
- Women in the military – Women participating in military activities
Bibliography
- Maria Botchkareva. Yashka: My Life as Peasant, Exile, and Soldier. As told to Isaac Don Levine (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1919. online (Archive.org))
References
- ^ ISBN 0313327076.
- ^ a b "Мария Леонтьевна Бочкарева". Archived from the original on 2017-11-02. Retrieved 2015-02-21.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Overlooked No More: Maria Bochkareva, Who Led Women Into Battle in WWI - The New York Times". The New York Times. 26 April 2018. Retrieved 2022-02-03.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-61374-686-8.
- ISBN 0700614850.
- ^ ISBN 0313327076.
- ISBN 0313327076.
- ISBN 978-1-4091-0279-3.
- ^ Jerome Landfield to Secretary Breckenridge Long, July 13, 1918. Department of State communique, Long Papers, box 38, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-313-30438-5.
- ISBN 978-1-4422-5281-3.
External links
- Battalion of Death at IMDb